lysander button and robert blake



S ATES LYSANDER BUTTON AND ROBERT BLAKE, OF WATERFORD, NEW YORK.

COUPLING FOR HOSE-PIPE.

Specification of Letters Patent No. 30,909, dated December 18, 1860.

j To all whom t may concern:

county of Saratoga and State of New York,

have invented an Improvement in Couplings for Hose and Pipes; and we do hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description of the principle or character which distinguishes it from all other things before known and of the usual manner of making, modifying, and using the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawing, which exhibits a side elevation of the coupling with hose or pipe attached, the parts of the coupling being set up or joined ready for use.

Our invention consists in an improvement in setting up the parts of couplings for hose and pipes, set forth as follows. In setting up the common screw couplings and other couplings in which a rotary movement is required a lever or tool called a spanner is used to produce thel required force to make a tight joint, and is also necessary to assist in uncoupling. The spanner, which is well known, is a species of wrench which takes hold of studs upon the revolving part of the coupling in order to turn it. Our improvement dispenses with the use of the spanner and in place of the studs we use a folding lever or handle jointed to the revolving part of the coupling, by which lever the required force is given to make a tight joint. This lever or handle when not in use is folded or laid back against the hose or pipe and when needed for use is raised to the position required, x, to act as a lever in turning the swivel collar to which it is attached. The drawing exhibits the couplingfor which Letters Patent were granted to us on the tenth day of January 1860. This coupling is shown as set up for use, a, being the female part and b the male part. It will be understood that after the male part has been entered and properly matched with the female part, the setting up or tightening of the joint is effected in this coupling by the rotary movement of the swivel collar d. According to the description given in our patent aforesaid this movement was to be effected by the use of the ordinary Spanner operating upon studs as in the common screw coupling. By our present improvement we dispense with the Spanner having always at hand a suflicient lever power in the folding handles or levers c, c, for setting up and for disconnecting the parts of the coupling.' These handles or levers are hung upon pins or axes e, e, between the projections c', z'. One handle or lever will suffice for turning the collar cl, but in the kind of coupling shown in the drawing two handles are important one being attached to the collar d, and one to the male part b. The positions of the handles are so arranged with reference to the movements of the parts that when the coupling is set up, the handles are on opposite sides of the coupling, and when uncoupled and ready for connection the handles are near and in line with each other so that both may be seized by one hand in making the side connection. When this is made the handles are moved apart in setting up. It is obvious that the folding handle is applicable with the same economy to any coupling which is set up by rotary movement and the handle may be so hung as to fold at right angles with the axis of the coupling and subserve the same purposes.

What we claim as our invention and iinprovement is- The folding handle-lever or levers attached to a part or parts of such couplings for hose and pipes as require a rotary movement of said part or parts in the. act of setting up, as set forth.

LYSANDER BUTTON. ROBERT BLAKE.

Witnesses E. BUTTON, GEORGE BLAKE. 

